


Slow Dogs Fight Harder

by Justice_Turtle (Curuchamion)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aromantic, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Friends With Benefits, LGBTQ Character of Color, Mass Effect 2, Multi, Open Relationships, Pansexual Character, Trans Character, bad language because Zaeed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7551016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curuchamion/pseuds/Justice_Turtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zaeed Massani, the galaxy's oldest human merc, is looking for a badass way to die. Cerberus' offer of a world-saving suicide mission sounds damn near perfect.</p><p>He didn't plan to meet Commander Janet Shepard.</p><p>Edit: HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning to get through the destruction of the Collectors, the war with the Reapers, and beyond. Eventually. This is gonna be a long-haul story. ;S
> 
> Rating will hopefully change to Explicit once I actually manage to write some porn, but I don't want to promise yet... ;P
> 
> Edit: If you're confused, I deleted the Virmire "prologue" chapter that was here. I didn't like the tone it set, and it felt unnecessary. Sorry about that.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zaeed joins the Normandy crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I'm posting this from a homeless shelter because apparently that's how I roll now. XD
> 
> For obvious reasons, I have no idea when I'll get the next chapter finished. Could be tomorrow, could be next month. Or next year. ;P

“Almost done, Jessie-girl,” Zaeed muttered, carefully tightening the last tiny fastener on his reassembled assault rifle. “There you go.” He stroked the battered old gun for a second, his wordless mood halfway between a blessing and a prayer. If Jessie still didn’t work, after all he’d tried… well, he had no more ideas.

No good sitting around waiting, then. He huffed out a breath, stood up, thumbed off the safety, and raised the gun to his shoulder, sighting down on his practice target -- no more than a square pad of dense ballistics gel, hung on the wall of his dingy little hotel room. Zaeed traveled light.

He had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm himself before he felt centred enough to fire. Slowly, steadily, he squeezed the trigger, drawing it back as far as it would go. And… nothing.

_Damn._

Zaeed set Jessie carefully back down on the weapon bench. He felt chilled and shaky. “I’m sorry, love,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

She should work, that was the odd thing; every part of her mechanism seemed in fine order. He’d replaced worn parts, removed finicky mods, stripped her down to her clean basic lines, oiled and calibrated and fussed over her. Jessie was in the best shape of her mechanical life. She just didn’t _work._

After a few minutes of blank staring, Zaeed managed to pull his fumbling thoughts together. There was nothing more he could do for Jessie. Not tonight, anyway. So, instead of sitting in here moping, he’d much better go out and get very, very, very drunk. Maybe find a fight or a whore to take his mind off things -- he wasn’t sure which he wanted.

He quickly brushed his teeth, ran a comb through his hair, and checked the hidden pockets in his armor where he kept his credits. Good enough. A sidearm… Zaeed flinched. Normally he’d carry Jessie with him, wherever he went. He picked out a pistol at random and headed out the door.

****************

_Mr. Massani,_

_Your modified terms are accepted by us, to wit: Cmdr. Shepard will assist you in the completion of your previously contracted responsibilities to Eldfell-Ashland Energy Corp. at her soonest discretion. The monetary terms of our contract are unchanged. Please be prepared to receive your requested 24 hours’ notice of Cmdr. Shepard’s arrival on Omega at any time._

_Yours in business,_  
_Melynda Branston,_  
_Human Resources Department,_  
_Cerberus, Inc._

Zaeed nodded. No need for Cerberus to know about Vido; he didn’t just want the bastard dead, he wanted him to die painfully and slowly, at Zaeed’s own hand.

Twenty years he’d spent tracking the son of a bitch down. He had to get this right.

He filed the e-mail away.

********************

Janet flumped down into the copilot’s chair next to Joker and put her feet up on the console. “God fucking damn everything,” she said wearily.

Joker glanced over, his hands still flying among the haptic keyboards. “Bad day?”

“I’ve had worse," Janet said. "I think. You know how to work the comm shit, right?”

“Comms, sensors, life support -- if it’s part of the ship I can run it,” Joker said. “I’m not an engineer like Adams or Tali, but I’m way better than this _thing_ here.” He jerked his head at EDI’s console. “Why?”

Right on cue, EDI popped up her faceless holographic “head” to rebut Joker’s jibe. “Mister Moreau, human reaction times--”

“Shut up, EDI,” Shepard groaned. “Go study comedic timing or something. It’s only funny if you don’t take the bait every time.” She stretched her shoulders and tried to crack the tension out of her neck. “Joker, I need an appointment to meet with Anderson or the Council or somebody as soon as possible. I have to get the real story on this Collectors disappearances deal, who’s doing what about it, the whole thing. None of this Cerberus-filtered bullcrap.”

Joker nodded. “You got it, Commander.” He pulled up a new haptic window and started sending e-mails.

Janet huffed out a breath and tried to relax. It didn’t work. “Can I hug you, Joker?” she asked. “You’re the only one around here acting normal.”

“Ouch,” Joker drawled, grinning in mock offense. “What about Chakwas? I thought she was supposed to be the normal one around here.”

Janet shook her head. “There’s something weird going on there. I mean, didn’t she do Kahoku’s autopsy, for fuck’s sake? She has to know Cerberus is dickweasels first-hand. And it’s not… I mean, you just fly. She’s a _doctor_.” She trailed off, staring out the window at the slowly shifting stars around them.

Joker finished sending off appointment requests to Anderson, Hackett, Udina, and the Council’s secretarial staff. “So I’m guessing you’re not all that worried about the whole constant surveillance thing,” he remarked.

Shepard looked up. “Huh? Nah, Cerberus knows I hate them. It’s not exactly classified,” she said, and there was something like a momentary twinkle in her brown eyes.

“I meant the reading your messages, going to see the Council part,” Joker said. “You can’t make a move they don’t know about.”

Shepard shrugged. “If I think about that I’ll go crazy,” she said simply. “I assume they have a take-over-control gadget in the ship and possibly one in me if I do anything they really hate, so until they push the big red button, I’m gonna do exactly what the fuck I want.” She didn’t look at all happy about it.

Joker spun his chair to face her. “Yeah, you can hug me,” he said. “If you want, I mean.” The old Shepard had always been handsy, giving out hugs and back-slaps to her squad -- she’d kissed Joker solidly on the mouth for that precision Mako drop over Ilos -- and while he’d deflected earlier, she could probably use the contact after a couple of years without.

The hug was awkward, with Joker seated and Shepard not quite sure of her own new strength, but she seemed to relax a little bit. “Thanks, Joker,” she said, straightening up. Then, “Look. Joker... shoot straight with me. Do you think I’m me?”

Joker could have given a flip response to that, but he liked Shepard enough not to shut her down. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I saw-- I thought I saw--” He gulped.

“Fuck,” said Shepard, and hugged him again. “I forgot about that. Goddammit. Forget I asked.” She shook herself out, clearly just as uncomfortable discussing her death as Joker was.

“There’s a gym and stuff down in the shuttle bay,” Joker said, clumsily trying to change the subject. “Want to go hit things? I mean, you could hit things. I could… lift weights or something.” Since he’d finally gotten reinforcing rods installed in his long bones while he was grounded, he had a lot of new physical therapy exercises to do.

Shepard tilted her head on one side for a couple of seconds, assessing him. “You don’t need to drive the ship?” she asked, sounding honestly curious.

“Nah, there’s an autopilot,” Joker said. “It’ll be a couple hours before we need to dock at the fuel depot. Mostly I just… stay here in case of emergencies. You know, things the _machines_ can’t handle.” He shot another glower over at EDI’s console, but the AI stayed silent.

Shepard grinned. “All right,” she said, sounding genuinely more relaxed now. “Give me the tour.”

************

Zaeed had just collared his latest bounty – a batarian troublemaker, one La'irrheem Patak – when his omni-tool beeped.

“Goddammit,” he grumbled, glancing down at the message alert. _Sender: Cerberus._ “You, stay put.” He slammed Patak’s head against the wall, half-stunning him for a second, then brought up the message.

_Massani: Cmdr Shepard arrives Omega 5 minutes. Meet in bay F-303-JZ-lambda-4096G. Miranda Lawson, Cerberus._

“Fucking hell,” Zaeed muttered. “I said twenty-four hours. Do they ever listen? They do not.” He got a firmer grip on Patak’s jumpsuit collar. No time to turn the batarian bounty in now. “All right, arsehole,” he said, “quick march.”

They made it to Shepard’s docking bay with perhaps half a minute to spare. Unfortunately, there weren’t any handy grip-bars to lock Patak to; that could be a problem. Patak was bigger and stronger than Zaeed, and while Zaeed had a vested interest in bringing Patak in alive, Patak had no interest in leaving Zaeed alive at all. “Sit down, you pissbucket,” Zaeed ordered, shoving Patak onto the floor. “Shut your mouth, stay still. You try to run and I’ll shoot you. Got it?”

“Please,” Patak groaned, “whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it. Triple it!”

Zaeed kicked him hard in the face. “I said shut it!”

Steps behind him – three armored humans, by the sound. “You Zaeed Massani?” a female voice asked.

Zaeed gave Patak another glare and turned around. “That’s right,” he said, quickly sizing up the speaker. Tall, brown, hawk-faced, a pretty good match for the Commander Shepard in the old news stories he’d looked up. Dark hair shaved nearly off, a weird tracery of glowing scars over her exposed skin; Cerberus was really pushing this back-from-the-dead shit. “You must be Commander Shepard.”

Shepard nodded. “Yep. You know what you’re signed on for?”

The Cerberus logo on Shepard’s armour had been badly painted over and an N7 logo hand-painted on instead. She didn’t want to be with them, then, didn’t trust them. Probably figured they’d signed him under false pretences. Maybe they had. Didn’t seem likely. “You’re after the Collectors, they’re kidnapping human colonies, nobody gets out alive,” Zaeed said. “That about right?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Shepard said. “I take it the batarian is luggage?”

Zaeed glanced down at Patak and snorted. “Nah, I gotta hand him in before I leave here. Pissed off somebody rich enough to hire me to go after him – for my bring-‘em-in-alive rates, even.”

"Please," Patak whimpered. "You have to listen to me!"

Zaeed kicked him again before turning back to Shepard. “Don’t much care what happens to him after I get paid.”

Shepard nodded again, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. “Not many mercs would take a suicide mission for the pay,” she said, not quite a question.

The two mooks flanking Shepard were career Cerberus, shiny tailored fatigues with intact logos and all. Best not to give too much away. “Cerberus didn’t tell you about our other little arrangement?” Zaeed asked.

Shepard primmed up her thin lips. “No. They didn’t,” she said grimly, and turned on her heel to face the female Cerberus officer. “Miranda?”

“Mister Massani has a prior agreement with Eldfell-Ashland Energy to retake a gang-occupied fuel refinery of theirs on the planet Zorya,” Miss Lawson explained smoothly. Hoity-toity tart, probably a skilled assassin under the veneer. “We’ve promised him your assistance in this matter.”

Zaeed cleared his throat, and Shepard swung neatly back around. “That true?” she asked.

Zaeed nodded. “More or less. You ever hear of Vido Santiago?” Best start feeding Shepard his side of the story now, while they were on the topic.

Shepard shook her head slightly, and Zaeed continued. “Head of the Blue Suns – big merc gang around these parts, more like a small army. Took over this refinery to fuel their ships. They’re using the workers there for slave labour.” That was all true, as far as it went.

“And you don’t want to leave a job half done,” Shepard said, filling in the blanks just the way Cerberus had. “Okay. You got a deadline or anything on that?”

Zaeed shrugged. “They’re settled in for a few weeks. Don’t have to go rushing off straight away.”

“Okay, cool,” Shepard said. “Grab your gear and report to the Normandy.”

Zaeed nodded briefly. Patak, thinking he was distracted, made a break for the other side of the docking bay; Zaeed drew his pistol and fired left-handed, hitting Patak in the hip. Shepard barely had time to jerk at the noise and reach for her own sidearm before it was all over.

“See you, Shepard,” Zaeed drawled wryly, holstering his pistol. “I’ll be locked and loaded the next time you’re ready to get some killing done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to make it interesting when I have to incorporate this much game dialogue is the goddamn worst. Zorya is gonna be pure hell to write. :P
> 
> Sorry, I suspect this isn't what these boxes are actually for. I'm old-school, blame FFnet. XD
> 
> Edit: Yeah, I, uh, may have deleted a big chunk of what I originally posted in this chapter due to dissatisfaction with the tone. Sorry about that. Better luck next time. :-)
> 
> Edit2: And the first chapter. Sorry. In better news, I hope to have a new chapter up within the next month or two. ;-)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WROTE! Not much, but hey, I live. XD Realistic PTSD nightmares are hard. Next stop, the Citadel.

Shepard’s ship, the _Normandy_ , looked and felt more like a luxurious private yacht than like a warship. Zaeed was assigned an entire room to himself; admittedly, it was a small auxiliary cargo hold rather than a furnished stateroom, and there was a rubbish compactor next to the window, but compared to a standard bunk or even a Terminus hotel room, it was enormous.

Zaeed put his bedroll down in one corner, arranged his gear on top of a stray crate, then leaned against a wall and looked around. Empty space was one thing when it was outside, full of stars and darkness, or when it belonged to someone who could afford to make a show of it. An extra ten square meters or so in his own living quarters were quite another story; he felt oddly lost, as if he'd wandered into somebody else's formal dining parlour by mistake.

He pulled out a throwing knife and tossed it vindictively the length of the room. It stuck in the wall just under the painted number 2.

************

Janet picked up a pair of Cerberus fatigue pants, swung them around by one leg a few times, and slapped them against the fish tank with a satisfying _thwack!_

The fish tank did not respond. Janet sighed, dropped the pants on the floor, and sat down crossly on her desk. Not a single piece of clothing without a Cerberus logo in her entire damn captain’s suite; even her underthings, her bedclothes, and the towels in her bathroom were colorblocked white and black, with the little black-and-gold logo on one side.

“They think they own me,” she muttered. At least she’d gotten the logo off her armor -- there was a full new set cooking in the fabricator right now, Alliance blue with N7 stripes. But walking around the ship in Cerberus casuals would send the message that she was _with_ them, one of their own.

Maybe she was. Maybe there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about any of this. But she could make a fuss, kicking and screaming the whole way.

Janet stood up, wrapped a bath towel around herself, and strode toward the elevator.

********

Joker considered his supper. It was an unappetizing brown glop that looked like it belonged in a toilet. _Maybe I’m not that hungry_ , he thought. _Maybe I can scrounge some ration bars._

Somewhere near the other end of the mess table, somebody wolf-whistled. Joker looked up, curious.

“Ten-SHUN!” Commander Shepard barked, and Joker snapped upright out of pure reflex. So did everyone else around the table.

Shepard was wearing a bath towel and nothing else. She also looked furious as hell. “Listen up, all of you!” she snarled. “I don’t care what Cerberus thinks, this is _my_ fucking ship and _my_ fucking rules. You!” She pointed at one of the crewmen, somewhere near the spot the whistle had originated. “Name and rank, sailor.”

“Uh. Engineer Ken Donnelly, ma’am -- sir?” the man stammered, visibly wilting under the full force of Shepard’s Commander mode.

“And under what circumstances, Engineer Ken Donnelly, is it acceptable to whistle at a superior officer?” Shepard demanded.

“Uh. Uh. None, sir, uh, ma’am, uh, Commander, um, sir?” Donnelly managed.

“Correct.” There was a two-second pause, during which Joker was absolutely sure the next words out of Shepard’s mouth were going to be “ _So why did you?_ ”. Instead, she barked, “Joker!”

Joker flinched, but managed to snap back “Yes ma’am!” without stammering, which he figured was a pretty impressive accomplishment.

“What can a Spectre do without consequences?”

“Uh.” Joker had not expected to be the target of a pop quiz. “Anything except betray the Council?”

Shepard nodded once, sharply. “Exactly.” She turned back to Donnelly’s end of the table. “I can airlock any one of you, or feed you to a varren, or”-- she leaned in toward Donnelly, a toothy half-grin on her face --“whatever the fuck I want. So!” She slammed her fist down on the table. “Nobody on this ship, from here on out, will disrespect _any_ woman, regardless of rank or species. Is that understood?”

Dead, terrified silence.

Shepard stepped back a pace. “I said, is that understood?”

Joker found his voice. “Yes ma’am!” he called out, and wavery voices started to echo him from around the table.

Shepard nodded. “Good. Now behave yourselves. I gotta go yell at Miranda.” She whirled on her heel and was gone.

Joker took his plate of brown slop and went to look for a trash can.

******

Zaeed snapped awake. Something was wrong. Vido… Vido was nearby? No, that wasn’t it. Jessie?... As he fumbled under his pillow, looking for Jessie and finding only a standard heavy pistol, he gradually woke up.

Fucking nightmares, that’s what it was. He could barely remember the dream, but it had left him on edge, ready to shoot at shadows. He checked his omni-tool: not even midnight, ship’s time.

Maybe some exercise would help him fall back asleep. He sat up and pulled on his skivvies, then his armour. He scowled at his pistol for a minute, then loaded it with training rounds -- not heavy enough to kill or to punch holes in the ship’s hull, just powerful enough to knock an attacker back for a minute. He knew it was mostly the dream that had left him uneasy, but he’d survived thirty years in this business by listening to his instincts, even when they were paranoid.

Fully kitted out, he headed down to the big main hold. He could run a few laps, maybe get a bit of target practice, without disturbing anyone else on the ship.

The lift door slid easily enough when he got in, but when it opened on the hold, it stuck halfway open, making unhappy grinding noises. Zaeed stepped out of the lift, looking around cautiously. There was a shallow crater in the metal wall by the lift door, as if a very short krogan had headbutted it at full speed. There was also a suit of bright blue armour -- human, not krogan -- scattered on the floor between the lift and the nearby cargomaster’s console. Otherwise, the cargo bay looked empty.

Zaeed didn’t trust it. As quietly as he could -- his boots were made for asskicking, not stealth -- he headed toward the nearest boxlike, two-meter-tall ventilation fan.

A human figure holding a gun popped out from behind it. Moving on instinct, Zaeed dove into an evasive roll and came up firing. Just as he pulled the trigger, he saw that the figure had raised its hands in surrender, gun and all; he wrenched the muzzle of his own gun to one side, and the training bullet went _spang_ against the side of the fan casing.

“Shit!” said the person. “Shit shit shit fuck! EDI, turn the lights on.”

The cargo bay’s main lights came on, and after a second of squinting, the human figure resolved into Commander Shepard, covered in sweat, wearing Cerberus-logo skivvies, and holding a toy laser-tag gun. The tracery of glowing scars covered most of her body.

“Hi,” Shepard said, lowering her hands awkwardly. “Massani, right?”

Zaeed nodded. His brain was starting to work outside of threat-assessment mode. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

Shepard nodded back. “You either?”

“Yeah.” Zaeed glanced at the laser-tag gun, then at the cluster of holographic battle drones now floating gently near the ceiling of the hold. “Came down here for some target practice. You running a battle simulation?”

Shepard snorted bitterly. “If you call it that. EDI’s trying to help me learn how to shoot.” She snapped her fingers at the cluster of drones and beckoned one downwards. It floated obligingly toward her, hovering about four meters away. “You’d think after ten years I’d know how, but…” She took careful aim and fired -- and fired again, then again. On the third shot, her laser bolt connected and the drone winked out. “See?”

Zaeed whistled quietly. “You can’t shoot,” he said, not quite sure he believed it. “Commander Shepard can’t… _The_ Commander Shepard.”

“Biggest secret in the galaxy,” she grumbled, and took another wild shot at the group of drones on the ceiling. “My squad always knows, obviously.”

“But--“ Zaeed was still processing. “Your medals and, and everything. They’re not fake?“

“They’re real,” Shepard said. “The Alliance high-ups are convinced I’m some kind of super-badass. I mostly talk people down, or hit them with VI-guided omnitool blasts.” Another drone floated downward, and Shepard sighted in on it as it approached. “Or I wait till I can actually stick a gun in their face,” she said. “Back on Elysium, that’s what I did. You remember the old Devlon Stinger?”

There was a second laser-tag pistol lying on the cargo console. Zaeed picked it up. “Hell yeah,” he said. “One time in the Verge, ran into a krogan battlemaster armed with one of those little peashooters. Killed half my squad.” He squinted up at the ceiling with his good eye, aimed carefully, and took out all four drones hovering there with four quick shots. “Damn good weapon.”

“Yep, then you know,” Shepard said. Zaeed could hear a grin in her voice. “The breach in the defenses on Elysium was this narrow chokepoint. I could just sit there and let the batarians run up so I could shoot them in the head. One shot, one kill.” The drone drifted within a meter of her, and she nailed it with a solid center shot. “Good times. I miss that gun.”


End file.
